Biden Vetos Bipartisan Bill That Would Give His Successors, Including Trump, More Judgeships To Fill

With less than a month left in the White House, President Joe Biden vetoed bipartisan legislation that could give President-elect Donald Trump and at least one successor the opportunity to appoint more federal judges over the next decade.

The JUDGES Act sought to add 66 new federal judgeships in districts across the country starting in 2025 — though only a select number would be allowed every couple of years, meaning the additions would be spread across multiple administrations. C-SPAN’s Craig Caplan reported the bill passed the Democrat-led Senate by voice vote and the GOP-controlled House by a 263-173 vote — less than a veto-proof majority — after the 2024 election.

President Biden vetoed the JUDGES Act creating 66 U.S. district judgeships across the country over a 10yr period beginning next yr when the 2nd Trump Admin begins. Senate approved the bill by voice vote & the House 263-173 with less than a veto-proof majority after the election. https://t.co/eqS4e2sKCP pic.twitter.com/lUledIwVtC

— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) December 24, 2024

Biden announced on Monday that he was vetoing the bill, criticizing both chambers of Congress over how they handled the measure.

“S. 4199 seeks to hastily add judgeships with just a few weeks left in the 118th Congress,” Biden said. “The House of Representative’s hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships. The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges.”

The bill “would create new judgeships in States where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies. Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now,” Biden continued, adding, “Therefore, I am vetoing this bill.”

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Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Chris Coons (D-DE), a bipartisan duo who spearheaded the effort to get the bill passed, released a joint press release in June celebrating when the legislation advanced through the Senate Judiciary Committee by a unanimous vote and noting that it would “help address rising caseloads and ensure that Americans have swift access to justice regardless of where they live.”

After Biden torpedoed the bill, both lawmakers expressed disapproval.

“This misguided decision is just another example of why Americans are counting down the days until President Biden leaves the White House. Issuing this veto is partisan politics at its worst. The JUDGES Act is a fair bill with strong bipartisan support that would have created 66 judgeships over three presidential terms to address our judicial backlog,” Young said in a statement.

Young then took a swipe at Biden over the recent pardon of his son Hunter.

“The President is more enthusiastic about using his office to provide relief to his family members who received due process than he is about giving relief to the millions of regular Americans who are waiting years for their due process,” Young said. “Biden’s legacy will be ‘pardons for me, no justice for thee.'”

Fox News reported the following statement from Coons.

“I am disappointed by this outcome, for my own state and for the federal judges throughout the country struggling under the burden of ever-higher caseloads. I’ve worked on this bill for years, and thanks to tireless bipartisan effort with Senator Young, it made it to the president’s desk. It’s highly unfortunate that it will not become law,” Coons said.

“Senator Young and I took pains to make this a nonpartisan process, structuring the JUDGES Act so that Congress could pass the bill before any of us – Republican or Democrat – knew who would occupy the White House in 2025 and therefore nominate the new federal judges,” Coons went on, adding, “The Senate did its part by passing the bill unanimously in August; the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, waited for election results before moving the bill forward. As a result, the White House is now vetoing this bill.”

Among the others who chided Biden over the veto was Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA)

“The lame-duck Biden team would rather leave our courts short-staffed than allow Pres. Trump to fill some of the new seats this bill would’ve opened up,” Kennedy said in a post to X. “The Biden-Harris admin puts politics over country every time.”

The Senate recently confirmed the 235th judge nominated by Biden, a tally that surpassed the number of Trump’s federal bench picks approved by the upper chamber during his first term.